Prior to the present invention, thin films of thermoplastic material, such as cast paint film, have been widely utilized in a variety of laminating applications, such as for printing and packaging. In more limited applications, paint films have been applied to plastic bodies such as molded profiled strips of thermoplastics for body moldings for automotive vehicles. The use of such moldings has been limited in view of the initial cost of the paint film and the frequent rejection of molded parts because of wrinkles, distortions and stretch lines in the applied film which detracted from the appearance and acceptability of the finished body molding. Additionally, because of difficulty in securely laminating the paint film to the profiled strip, problems of de-lamination of the film occurred when the body moldings were subjected to severe environments associated with vehicle use.
Furthermore, prior to the present invention, profiled extrudate used as vehicle body side moldings often had to be knife cut or reheated and post formed in a die operation, or the molding was end capped to cover the plastic end to provide acceptable terminal ends. Such methods involved complex and tedious measuring and cutting procedures or extra parts which materially added to body molding costs.